This warning should set you up for the review
To begin, this game is without a shadow of a doubt the most faithfully recreated and perfectly transitioned IP that has come from any other medium. Does the game look like shit? Fuck yeah! It looks exactly like the shitty, signature, animation of the south park show. They didn't try 3D models and environments like they do with every simpsons and family guy game, it's just a good old fashioned 2.5D game and that's fine. It's great in fact, because it makes you feel like a part of the show. The whole game plays like one long episode of south park.
Bigger, and longer than this but...
That's not to say the game is perfect of course, because the only perfect game is Half-Life 3 and it will cease to be perfect the minute it's released, if that ever happens. Perfection only exists in the imagination and the second something is pulled from the imagination and forced into corporeal form it's going to have a problem or two. Having said that, my biggest criticism about the game isn't even the game makers' fault. It is the publisher's. South Park is famously offensive, it offends everyone for everything and thus promotes equality it's a strange show like that. Now, there is no one who doesn't know South Park isn't offensive, and yet Ubisoft felt the need to cut certain scenes from the European release of the game. They weren't forced to cut them by the ratings board, PEGI, in fact PEGI stated that it has never and will never demanded things be cut, it merely gives ratings based on the content there. South park passed through this and was given a rating, Ubisoft then cut these scenes and it had the same rating. The removal of this content served no purpose that I can see, save that it allowed Ubisoft to seel uncut versions of the game on their website for above retail.
Yeah, Europe gets this. Score 1 for America
On to the actual game, which I should talk about at some point or really what is the point. So, one of the first criticisms I had heard about this game is that you can't choose a female character to play as, which I considered odd for a game based on a show with such a diverse cast. Upon playing the game I did find out why you are unable to play as a girl though, and while I can see that people could still be upset, I also understand that it was a story based decision. Without getting into spoilers, part of the main storyline revolves around the fact that it's all the boys playing this game, while the girls are off in a "secret base" somewhere. Would it have really mattered if there was one girl there? Probably not, but that's how they decided to do it.
The actual gameplay is your typical RPG stuff, fetch quests and killing enemies, made atypical by the humour people have come to expect from south park. For example, you choose a class (Warrior, Mage, Thief, or Jew) and each comes with its own special abilities, but they're just kids pretending. So, ice attacks are done with fire extinguishers and fire attacks are done with fire crackers. It's refreshingly stupid in the days of attempted gritty realism.
why is Kenny a Princess? Why not?
The game's combat is fun but repetitive. After a while you're just going to be spamming the same attacks over and over until you win. Although, I did experience occasions where all of my attacks would only do horribly reduced damage. Looking only informed me this was most likely due to the opponents armour ratings, however my ally suffered no such drastic weakening (I'm talking a drop from 8000, to 700) plus I play as Jew, which is by far my favourite class, which has an ability that slices an opponents armour rating in half and that did nothing to improve my combat damage. On the plus side, it's a game where I get to fight four hobos and use an attack called circum-scythe which leaves one injured and bleeding and the rest grossed out. So, you take the rough with the smooth.
Plus this is a thing
Overall the game is tremendous fun and if you like south park you should definitely play it, even if you're not really a gamer because it's just so amazing to get to travel around the quiet mountain town and meet your favourite characters. If you don't like south park, however, I can't see this game changing your mind, or being worth playing for you. I could be wrong and maybe the interactivity of it will allow you to fall in love with the world of south park in a way the show never could. Either way I pray they make a sequel. Although, if they do I would like the town to grow. It was fun, but the map wasn't as large as I would like and even then not all buildings were accessible, but as I said it's not perfect.
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